Okay - it has been about a month and a half since our last posting. We got sidetracked when we met up with Monique's brother Tony and our friend Dave - followed by a series of housing options with horrible wifi connections. There are many funny stories and great photos to be shared. The postings will be pretty much daily until our journey wraps up back in the states - so read on!
Monique's alarm sounds at 7:15am. She has plans to revisit some of the places where the scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed. On the tour we were rushed. If we get up and go early there will be very few people and we can can take our time. We put clothes on, head out the door and systematically go through the scenes - walking place to place to take the pictures. Monique took pictures of the flip book pages from the tour we took the other day so we have the reference we need - in about 30 minutes we complete the mission.
Next we decide to get breakfast at a restaurant - no cooking in our apartment today. As we walk we look at different menus. Most places offer bakery goods and coffee or juice. We finally locate what we are looking for - cooked eggs. The restaurant is called "Rhea Silvia I" and it is right in our square. Monique orders a Mediterranean breakfast with eggs, tomatoes, ham and toast. Dave orders the three egg omelet and coffee. We eat our fill and head back up to the room. We need some computer time to post another day and check emails before going out to play.
After our work is done, we decide to do our historical walking tour - details described in the photo captions.
It starts at the Pile gate (Gradska Vrata Gate). Above the entrance is a sculpture of St. Blaise (Sveti Vlaho in Croatian). He is Dubrovnik's Patron Saint
Just inside the gate there is a giant round structure called Onofrio's Big Fountian (Velika Onofrijea Fontana). In the Middle Ages Dubrovnik had an aqueduct that brought water from the mountains seven miles away. Having plenty of water, huge salt reserves and a large granary to store food made Dubrovnik very siege resistant.
Next to the stairway leading to the top of the wall is The Church of St. Savior (Crkva Svetog Spasa). This small church was built by the town’s people to thank god after an earthquake in 1520. In 1667 another massive earthquake destroyed Dubrovnik and this was the only building left intact. During the recent war a bomb exploded right in front of the church and left shrapnel pockmarks on the church facade.
To the right of the church is the Franciscan Monastery Museum. It has a baroque interior like all the churches in Dubrovnik. They were all rebuilt after the 1667 earthquake. You can tour the building to see the cloister. More interesting is the fact that it houses one of Europe’s oldest continually operating pharmacies.
The poor people of Dubrovnik worshiped here while the “Dominican Church" (down at the far end of the Stradun) was for the wealthy. The tower is integrated into the structure of building. This is very different than other towers in Croatia. The Venetian convention was the standard. Dubrovnik and Venice were powerful maritime rivals so of course Dubrovnik had to make a statement. Its tower doesn't follow the convention. They are a proud people.
We walk down Dubrovnik’s main promenade — officially called the Placa, but better known as the Stradun. In the seventh century, this street was a canal. Romans lived on the island of Ragusa on the right side. The Slavs settled on the shore. In the 11th century, the canal separating Ragusa from the mainland was filled in. The towns merged, and a unique Slavic-Roman culture and language was born. For much of its history, Dubrovnik was forced to pay a hefty tribute to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire to maintain its independent status. Thus they hid their wealth and to avoid more taxes Dubrovnik down played its display of wealth in its buildings. They are all pretty plain.
We stop at Orlando’s Column (Orlandov Stup). Dubrovnik erected the column in 1417, soon after it had shifted allegiances from the oppressive Venetians to the Hungarians. By putting a northern European symbol in the middle of its most prominent square, Dubrovnik distanced itself from Venice. Whenever a decision was made by the Republic, the town crier came to the column and announced the news. The step he stood on indicated the importance of his message. The higher up, the more important the news. It was also used to punish people publicly.
In front of us is the Sponza Palace (Sponza-Povijesni Arhiv). This building, from 1522, is the finest surviving example of Dubrovnik’s Golden Age in the 15th and 16th centuries.
To the right of Sponza Palace is the town’s Bell Tower (Gradski Zvonik). The original dated from 1444, but it was rebuilt when it started to lean in the 1920's. Next to the tower is the entrance to the Sloboda movie theater (the rainy-day location for cultural events in the summer).
This is Onofrio’s Little Fountain (Mala Onofrijea Fontana) built in 1442. The purpose of the small fountain was to supply the market on the Luza square with water.
There is a big building beyond the fountain and that is City Hall (Vijećnica). It is the only 19th-century building inside the Old Town.
In the same square is the St. Blaise’s Church (Crkva Sv. Vlaha), dedicated to the patron saint of Dubrovnik. You’ll see statues and paintings of St. Blaise all over town, always holding a model of the city in his left hand. According to legend, a millennium ago St. Blaise came to a local priest in a dream and warned him that the up-and-coming Venetians would soon attack the city. The priest alerted the authorities, who prepared for war. Of course, the prediction came true.
St. Blaise’s Church was built following the 1667 earthquake and fire. And, while we’ve heard plenty on this walk about Dubrovnik’s rivalry with Venice, there’s no denying that this church is Venetian in its design. Dubrovnik invited a Venetian architect to design the church because they were getting along at that time. It looks like it belongs in a Venetian canal and even has the typical bulbous dome.
When our history lesson is done we walk to the Old Harbor. We want to catch a ferry to Cavtat, a nearby resort town tucked into a horseshoe shaped harbor. It is a quiet and beautiful harbor with restaurants and small stores. We try to buy tickets but the ferry does not take credit cards - it leaves in 15 minutes so we run to get cash at an ATM. The last ferry back leaves at six so we only would have two hours to explore. Rather than be rushed to leave the town, we choose to take the bus back because they run late into the night.
The weather is perfect and the open air ferry is a nice way to travel. The seas are not rough so the ride is pretty smooth. This is a nice perspective of the Old Town.
It takes about forty minutes before we pull up along the sea wall in Cavtat. There are two very large yachts backed into the small harbor.
Cavtat is small and very laid back. We walk the harbor looking for some food. At the end we find a nicer looking place called Konoba "Galija." Their speed matches the feel of the harbor - slow. When the food does arrive it is worth the wait. It’s late in the afternoon so this will be our dinner too.
We walk away full and follow the stone paved path up the hill - the town is small so it doesn’t take long to reach the top of it. We see some newer brick houses that are pretty nice then turn right and continue to follow the path. There are only people's homes along the path - no stores or shops.
We see a very large abandoned property that we could buy and remodel - Monique says it’s a dozer. We feed a blind cat a sausage that we kept from our lunch - it’s eye sockets looked empty. There are a lot of cats wandering around so rather than throw the food away we planned to share.
The path leads back down to the harbor at of the other end of town where we go into a church. The interior is very different than others we have seen. Most of the ornamentation is hanging on the walls, rather than built into the structure of the building - sort of like an after-thought. We come back out and go around the corner where we see a busy street going the other direction. We can see another harbor on the backside so we walk in that direction.
On the corner is an information office so we go in and ask where to catch the bus. The woman points to the side of the building and tells us no ticket is needed - you pay on the bus. We need more information so we go to a bus that is out there and the driver tells us that this is not the bus to Dubrovnik. There is a bus office so we go in and learn that they come very half hour and it will say Dubrovnik on the front (why couldn’t the lady in the TI office tell us that?). We find a table outside along the harbor with a view of the busses and order a rum and coke. When you order a drink you are given just the alcohol in the glass with ice - you have to order the mixer separately. She asks us if we want one coke or two. We order one to share and make our drink. No sooner do we take a sip and our bus shows up. It’s sunny with a nice harbor view so we decide to take the next bus. Why rush.
The next bus comes in only fifteen minutes so we quickly pay for our drinks and get on the bus. It makes four or five stops along the way before stopping at the top of Dubrovnik - by the cable car lift. We don't get off because we think it will go to the Pile gate stop where many busses stop. We are going past Old Town - not stopping at Pile gate - so we exit the bus at the next stop and learn we need to walk uphill quite far to get get back. Our legs are strong so it’s not a problem. As we are walking, we strike up a conversation with a couple from England who made the same mistake as us. In no time we are back in the walled city and stop at the grocery store for beer. We arrive in our temporary home and turn on the TV. We take a break before getting back to work on the blog. We are catching up and it feels good. Tomorrow we fly to Munich to meet Dave and Tony. We hope their flights go well.